In the morning we wake up early, around 4 AM, for the first leg of our birding tour in Guyana. We are going to be picked up at 4:30 AM from the hotel and then taken to the Mahaica River for an about two hour cruise on the river. As it is quite early breakfast is not served yet but we receive some prepackaged food that is eaten in the lobby while waiting for the minibus. The drive there takes about an hour with many people asleep and others starting birding conversations and trying to gauge their opposition. This changes as we turn from the main coastal road inland following the Mahaica River towards the starting point of the cruise. Here there are many wetlands and with it come the birds including our only Azure Gallinule fpr the trip.
The road is a one lane road and we have to let various farming implements and other cars to pass which is good as we can enjoy the nice, green landscape.
Around 6 AM we arrive at the starting point of the boat tour. We are awaited here by the boat drivers, there are two of them and with their and our guides help we make it onto the boat.
As usual for the next days the last ones on the boat are the guides as they will stay in the front to look for interesting birds and to call them out. While waiting for them to board we are surprised to see the Germany flag flying everywhere. We assume that Germany has sponsored some infrastructure project here or that the settlers are from German descent but the reason as we find out later is quite different. The political parties here have their own flags and people fly them to show the support. The Germany look-alike is the PPP party flag, the mostly Indo-Guyanese party.
And then we start on our cruise, it is a beautiful day though there are clouds in the distance that predict rain in the not to distant future. The river is quite wide and we hew close to the right side in this direction looking closely at the many trees and shrubs for anything interesting.
By this point the group is already split in the very experienced group (two people from Australia with around 9K species of birds seen ), the why are they here group with a very low count (that would be us 🙂 ), with the rest sitting in the middle with around 5K bird species seen. The more experienced people always see the birds first with us sometimes scrambling to see them but we do get better as the tour progresses, promise! Everyone from the middle group is really nice and helpful and we enjoy our time with them during the trip. The birds in the beginning are common like Ruddy Ground Doves and swallows but soon we start seeing more interesting birds like the Spotted Tody-Flycatcher that really caught our eye.
As we continue on the river we pass homesteads while following the wild side of the river and keeping an eye on the dark clouds ahead. We really hope that we can escape the rain at least until we see the hoatzin.
The hoatzins are the highlight of this boat trip, they are almost impossible to see elsewhere in Guyana, and they are the national bird of Guyana. And by themselves they are very prehistoric looking as we can see from up close, they barely fly and are very adapted to a riverine environment. They are unique in possesing a digestive system closer to a cow that supports a more effective breakdown of the leaves they eat continously.
After the exciting time with the hoatzins we continue on the river looking for any other interesting birds. Or maybe even mammals, who knows.
But birds it is mostly. The lifers for us and even for others on the boat come fast and furious. A Little Cuckoo here, a pair of Spot-Breasted Woodpeckers there and the count of birds increases seemingly by the minute.
What about a red-capped cardinal? And then on the shore a Southern Lapwing, there are lots of birds everywhere. We are not sure if this is because there are so many experienced birders on the boat or because there are so many birds but we will take it either way.
There are few other boats on the river so we are surprised when we encounter another tour, not sure if it was Hoatzin only or also something else but otherwise it is quite empty as we make our way upriver slowly and mostly silently.
One of the major attractions in Guyana in general are the many antbirds, birds the specialize in ants. On this trip we see a few with the most beautiful being two Antshrikes the Black-crested one with e a reddish crest(?!) and the Great one which at least seems larger than the other ones.
But the highlight, as throughout the trip, are the parrots in this case mostly Yellow-crowned Amazons. We encounter a group of them and the boat stops for a while for everyone to see them. This is in contrast to the Howlers, we barely stop to see them before moving on.
And then it starts to rain so the boat turns around and at high speed takes us back towards the launch area. But instead of landing near the buses it lands on the other side near a house and here we find out that we are invited to eat lunch at the house of one of the boat drivers. We first make the faux pas to enter with the shoes on but are soon corrected and we enter the covered area from where we still watch for birds until the lunch is served.
The rain has mostly past at this point, while cloudy we can go outside again with no risk of getting wet. But first we taste various local Guianan specialties, many of them inspired by Indian dishes in our opinion.
Then we pass some time birdwatching while everyone finishes lunch and afterwards it is time to cross the river to our minibuses which will take us to the next round of birding, the seawall and the coast.
